


in the breath before the axe falls

by JoJolightningfingers



Category: Bleach
Genre: 'ambiguous' here being the closest word i can find for..... whatever the fuck this is, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Compliant, M/M, Missing Scene, Sharing a Bath, Trust exercises, very surprised neither of those are tags already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28890348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJolightningfingers/pseuds/JoJolightningfingers
Summary: Perhaps it was what Ichigo said, about having his life in his hands. If that's the reassurance Ichigo needs, so be it.Post-Ch133, set in the 29 hours preceding Rukia's execution. Ichigo and Renji, two strangers but for blows exchanged between the swords that are their souls, share a final dip in the healing springs underneath Sokyoku Hill after attaining bankai.
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	in the breath before the axe falls

"So..."

Said like that, no word in any language Renji's ever known bears more weight than that one. He steels himself, stills his breath like so small a word is a gallows he is fated for—

That train of thought leads nowhere productive; he has to stop thinking about it. He can't, but he has to.

Across from him in the small spring, Ichigo watches him, apologetically cautious. As though Renji is a wounded tiger, and he the hunter preparing to prize open the iron jaws of a trap not meant for him. In the slant of his mouth is an acute awareness of his own mortality.

"Hn?" Renji lifts his chin, the sound a permission.

"...Why the change of heart?" His question and expression both betray how young he really is, behind resolve that exceeds some of more seasoned officers Renji knows. Coltish limbs and muscle that he hasn’t quite grown into yet, scabby and skinny, and his eyes are so earnest, and his soul is so bare. He means nothing by asking. He just wants to know.

The thing is. The thing is, Renji doesn't think his heart _has_ changed.

The thing is, Ichigo seems like he’s sensed that, and is giving him an out to take if he doesn't want to be forthcoming with something as vulnerable as a truth.

Guy like that—Renji thinks he deserves to know. At least a little bit. It isn't all his story to tell.

When they finish here, Rukia will be able to fill in the gaps.

"We grew up together. In Rukongai," he answers. It's simple, it's true, and if the kid is anything like how Renji feels in his bones he is, it'll explain well enough.

The mild surprise on Ichigo's face melts off with his soft ‘oh’ and becomes, just, mild. Understanding. _Yeah, that makes sense,_ that face seems to say. His eyes lose their focus on Renji's, meandering down in step with his mental process. Renji has to wonder what he could be thinking about. Wonders if he's just tracing the lines of his tattoos with his gaze because they're prominent, an anchor in the haze of steam rising from the water.

"What about you?" Renji hears himself say. "Why risk coming here? Fighting all the captains?" It's insanity. Both the concept of doing such a thing, and asking why, here and now. Looking a gift horse in the mouth. He isn't owed an answer, but he grasps for the off chance Ichigo is willing to give him one.

Ichigo looks taken aback for a moment, sinking silently another few inches under the water. He's in up to his collarbones now. His head tips forward in thought; his chin nearly ripples the surface. "'Cause she started it." There's an almost... Renji doesn't know how to describe the note his voice takes there. Wry, perhaps? "She gave me her powers so I could save my family. She could've given up on us, and she didn't. I'm just." His hand sloshes out behind his neck, ruffling and wetting the short hair at his nape. Embarrassed, Renji thinks. "I'm just returning the favor. I owe her that."

At the base of Renji's throat, a seed splits open and lays roots down in his lungs, filling him with heat and hope and wonder. Compelled by its growth, he moves a step closer to this enigmatic boy unthinking, harboring a nebulous notion that proximity will help him see where such confidence springs from. Ichigo does not move a muscle, holds his gaze as steady as his sword. That, too, is deserving of awe.

"And you trust me enough to help you with this?" To be so near that two steps more could have his hands around Ichigo's slender neck, fingers fitting up against the razor edge of his jaw. "Y’know I tried to kill you. Twice."

"Yeah, I do. With this, with my life—and hers too." Is it only Renji's imagination that makes Ichigo seem to drift closer too? The water is barely even disturbed, it’s not conclusive either way. He has eyes like polished amber. "You had my life in your hands once. You let me keep it. That's all the proof I need."

Renji stills. The growing thing inside him pierces the surface of his skin, puts out tendrils from the bases of his fingers that twine and stretch and pull his hand nearer to him as slow as a fern unfurls to reach the sun. "You did the same for me," he offers back, the long thin scar across his torso a quiet punctuation.

Ichigo's gaze dips to it, acknowledging. They return to Renji's up his half-raised arm on a pathway marked in ink and red, and his lips part a sliver. "What can I say?" he asks, humorously resigned, the tone of a person who knows that he's caught. "I never said I wanted to kill you. Just beat you."

His skin is dewy, warmer somehow than the water sealing up the cuts and bruises of the day, when Renji lets his fingers tip the center of his chest, where Byakuya ran him through. And still, Ichigo allows it.

"You trust me, though?" It's funny how he can disbelieve that, when Renji's reasons for doing so are the same as his own. When Renji just _told_ him that they were. He's still watching Renji, measured. His chest rises and falls beneath the touch.

Or maybe he's only asking for reassurance. Renji snorts a little laugh, not unkind, dimpling a corner of his mouth with a half-smirk. "You could hold me down under the water right now and I know you wouldn't drown me." Wouldn't that be something, meeting his death in a pool meant for salving wounds. "In fact?" Now that he's spoken it aloud the idea latches on, becoming irresistibly heady in the way that only recklessness can be. It’s strange to feel the swoop of nerves wringing his heart. He knows he’s not fated to die yet. Tomorrow, maybe, but not today. "I dare you to."

Perhaps it was what Ichigo said, about having his life in his hands. If that's the reassurance Ichigo needs, so be it.

The boy's eyes widen. In them, Renji can see him thinking it over, hesitant but intrigued. Then, a hand catches his wrist and twists his arm, making it a fulcrum to push him below the surface. Though quick, it remains somehow gentle (leaving aside the sudden flux of water up his nose, seeing as he didn't have adequate preparation time). His lungs are empty. He is not afraid.

He is not afraid, but he is shocked by Ichigo _joining_ him, anchoring fingers in his hair like a thicket of dulse, and pushing their mouths together. A surprised noise leaves Renji in a froth of bubbles, and Ichigo fills the space it left with air. Renji breathes it in, lightheaded. His vision under the water is cloudy, and being so close makes all the detail indiscernible anyway, but even so he can tell Ichigo's eyes are closed.

Well. Renji gives back what he gets, breath for breath, and feels Ichigo's grip around his wrist relax.

He thinks it's only deprivation that has them faint and gasping when they break the surface. Renji's heart races, his skin tingles all over. It's probably the water. He's having a hard time thinking straight. Underneath his dizziness, a voice that is and isn't his speaks temptation. _Breathe_ , it urges with a soothing murmur, as his consciousness flickers. _Take a moment to rest_.

A handsbreadth away from his face, Ichigo is panting too, fanning steam in eddies between them. Droplets cling to his eyelashes and fall in rivulets from his temples to his jaw. His hand is still around Renji's wrist. Renji's fingertips—and palm too, he notices now—are still against Ichigo's breast. Life pulses tangibly at the point of contact.

Their mouths don't quite match up when they lean into each other’s support; it's a brief thing, more like solace than passion, done for the sake of contact and warmth. Ichigo sighs, and with it trembles out the tension and the fear. Renji answers with an echo, purging stale inadequacy and the terror of failure. He flexes his hand until his nails kiss crescents into the border of the puncture scar. As if in answer, Ichigo lets his hand fall and brush the tail of the wound he made, where it passes close to the lowermost stripe of the tattoos on Renji’s sides.

“See?” Renji says, the word blurred in the corner of Ichigo’s mouth. “Told you I trusted you.”

The boy huffs out through his nose, the closest to a laugh he’s been all day. “I never doubted that. I just wanted to hear it from you.”

Renji thinks, privately, that he knows Ichigo well for someone he doesn’t know at all. Too many similarities for anything otherwise.

Tomorrow, only hours from now, Rukia will face her punishment. Tomorrow, they will emerge from this hole like dragons from a den and bare their fangs at the fate that decrees it. Tomorrow, they win, or they die in the attempt.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, they breathe. Tonight, they live.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm allergic to writing straightforward relationships i can't i just CANT. shoutout to glassedplanets for letting me fling this word spaghetti in the dms.
> 
> all im saying is that what renji said to ichigo right before they went to fight yhwach is quite possibly the most nonplatonic thing you can say to a person, ichirukiren is canon, and the last chapter of bleach doesn't exist. thanks for coming to my TEDtalk


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